Well…maybe it has, but if so, that’s through your own actions, not those of the government.

Actually, ‘action’ isn’t really a word I’d use to describe our government. ‘Inaction’ would be more appropriate.

And my God…I’m thankful for that.

Let me give you 10 reasons why.

#10 CHIP

Well, the government reopened, and with it, we got another 6 years of the CHIP.

Several Democrats voted against giving healthcare to kids. Our own Senator Tester was one of them.

Republicans will never stop mentioning this, and – as James Conner says over at Flathead Memo – this could prove costly.

What the hell was Jon thinking?!?

#9 DACA

I gave you the figures weeks ago:

9 million vs. 800,000.

That was the number of kids on CHIP verses the number of DACA Dreamers.

9 million American kids versus 800,000 illegal aliens.

And Dems actually think they have a winning issue here.

I love the GOP, and how they realize what I’ve been saying for years…take the other guy’s issues and make them your own.

Trump supports a path to citizenship, even though many of his supporters do not.

And boy, he’s a smart cookie. Tying DACA to border wall funding is a bold move, and one that will get him what he wants.

Dems boxed themselves into a corner with the shutdown, and they have nothing to bargain over when it comes to DACA.

#8 State of the Union

I guess the big speech is this Tuesday.

I could care less, and most Americans are just like me.

Last year 47 million Americans watched the speech. 14% of the country.

In 2016, 31 million people watched.

Pray tell…why such low numbers?

Because it’s boring.

It’s a 1-to-2-hour borefest, with a bunch of rich, white men in suits giving themselves a veritable circle-jerk over how good they are.

Once again, I’m so happy that the American people are smart…smart enough not to waste their night listening to these fools telling us how good the country is.

Here in the trenches, we know the country is in the shitter. Has been for decades.

I guess if you’re one of those fancy fucks that’ll be in Congress on Tuesday, however, things couldn’t be rosier.

#7 A Laughable Opposition

I love ID and Cowturd.

Two Dem-backed sites that get their knickers in a knot over anything the GOP does.

And boy…they really have an impact, don’t they?

Whether it’s bashing Daines or Zinke or Gianforte, or maybe even putting up political cartoons that mock the physical appearance of our politicians, these sites really go balls to the wall.

And my, what an impact!

Dems control few state legislatures. They don’t have many governors, or state-wides. All three branches of the federal government are lost to them.

Fewer people are actually giving money to the Democrats. The DNC is broke. The Montana Democratic Party is taking in less money than they spend.

Maybe there’s just not enough blog posts…perhaps that’s the problem.

If only ID and Cowturd – and the many sites like them across this vast county – would just post more, maybe things would turn around.

Or maybe not.

You see, it’s easy to complain. It’s hard to work.

Despite the lip service paid to women’s issues, neither ID or Cowturd actually went to the Women’s March last week to take pictures or tell us what they saw.

They’ll bitch, but they’ll do little else.

#6 Money, Money, Money

In another couple weeks I’ll begin posting my paystubs on this site, comparing them to last year’s.

I’ll do this so you can see what effect the Trump tax cuts have had on regular, working people.

I fully expect my take-home pay to go up.

I’m happy for this, as I’d rather spend that money in my local economy instead of giving it to the government so they can…waste it.

Whether it’s pissing it away on our two never-ending wars, giving it to our bloated federal bureaucracy, or simply using it to pay interest on our out-of-control debt, you and I both know that money will be wasted.

There are tons of arguments for why giving more of your money to the government helps you.

It’s just that here in the real world, we never see these benefits.

#5 Infrastructure? Please

Talk is starting up that we’ll be funding infrastructure soon.

Give me a break.

This country doesn’t care about itself. Look at our roads. I remember the last time we had a highway bill pass: it actually underfunded our infrastructure needs by $10.5 billion.

This country will never be rebuilt.

Oh, you’ll hear a lot of big talk from our politicians, but it’s just that…talk.

Building schools and roads in Iraq and Afghanistan will always be more profitable than doing so here in America.

And you want it this way.

You vote for D’s and R’s, all the while complaining that nothing ever changes.

No shit, Sherlock. Let's grow a pair and get off our fat and lazy asses and actually get mad.

But we never will, and nothing will ever change.

#4 Jesus Would Never Stop Throwing Up

The Catholic church cares so much about its followers that it hid money so it wouldn’t have to pay the poor schmucks that were abused by their priests.

$86 million in real estate and cash.

The Vatican Bank has $8 billion in assets.

And this for an organization that prides itself on ‘helping the poor.’

Seems to me they spend more time helping themselves.

We shouldn’t be surprised by this. We all know that organized religion is corrupt. It’s why 60% of Americans don’t even bother going to church.

Why should we?

Oh, I think I know…so we can hear some asshole give us a sermon on heaven and hell while behind the scenes, he covers up his assets so he doesn’t have to pay the people he fucked up the ass.

Jesus would be proud.

#3 Pay

How’s your pay?

Has it gone up lately?

Personally, I saw two of my jobs go from $8.15 an hour to $8.30 an hour.

If I was working full-time, that’d be an extra $6 a week.

Wow…and thanks.

Ya really helped me out a lot there.

Since 2011, wages in Montana have gone up by 10%. Housing prices have gone up 40%. Here in Missoula, housing prices are so high that we’re in the “top 3 percent of unaffordable counties nationwide.”

What a failure.

Don’t expect your wages to rise, either.

Your boss doesn’t give a flying fuck about you. You can be replaced. And good luck asking for a raise. I did that with an employer last January and was promptly fired.

You know nothing will change.

Every single one of our politicians is a rich man or woman…people that don’t work for minimum wage and actually hold those that do in contempt.

Here in Montana, we actually have the richest member of Congress representing us.

To those folks, the only people working for minimum wage are teenagers.

Talk about clueless.

#2 Divisions

Here’s an idea:

Instead of focusing on the people that are making our lives miserable, why don’t we just fight amongst ourselves?

This is one of the greatest victories the rich, elite, ruling-class has managed to perpetuate.

Instead of grabbing our pitchforks and storming the castle gates, we actually stay down in the village, attacking each other.

Up in those castle windows, the rich smile and laugh at us while drinking their Courvoisier.

And we let them get away with this.

Here in America we think we’re strong, but nothing could be further from the truth.

We’re a weak nation, full of weak and spineless people.

We allow a small, fraction-of-the-population ruling class dictate how we live, how much we make, and what we can do. And then we actually give them a sizeable portion of our earnings so they can stay in charge.

Yep, if we’re not paying them taxes, we’ll pay them for the products we ‘oh-so-desperately-need.’

Worse, we actually buy into their bullshit and send our young men and women overseas to die for the rich man’s profits.

We call this patriotism and being ‘a good American.’ Parents actually encourage their kids to think like this.

#1 It Doesn’t Matter

Over the past week I logged out of my social media accounts.

I didn’t make posts and I didn’t read the posts of others.

It was a huge breath of fresh air.

I didn’t comment on the news because I wasn’t following the news. And my goodness…my life didn’t change at all.

It’s amazing how little the national debate actually affects us!

For some reason, however, we actually think that what’s on the national news does have an impact on us.

Boy are we stupid.

Now, I’m sure you didn’t like this post.

Maybe it rubbed you the wrong way.

Good. We need that. This country needs that.

Because if we keep rubbing ourselves the way we have, I don’t think this nation will remain a viable, going concern for much longer.

But what do I know?

I’m just a poor, working man with no savings and nothing in retirement. There are tons of rich, well-off folks that will tell you everything is peaches and cream.

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Montana Blogby Greg Strandberg

This Montana history blog is working its way up through time.It began in March 2013 with the early geology of Montana and continues on toward recent Montana history. Currently we're edging up into the 1990s.